Bincy Wilson

Bincy Wilson is improving social services to help women who
leave the sex trade, a topic she first began tackling in her native
India.

A Champion for Women

“In India, there is a marked difference between faculty and students. UB treats me as an expert in my field.”

Bincy Wilson, Doctoral Student in Social Work

Bincy Wilson discovered her interest in social work during her
undergraduate days in her native India.

Through her church youth group, she worked with needy
populations, including the homeless, orphans, abandoned elders,
disabled children and the rural poor.

After completing a master’s degree in social work from the
University of Mangalore, Wilson was a social worker with Arz, an
organization that combated commercial sex trafficking in the Indian
state of Goa.

She worked closely with victimized women for three years and
helped establish an automatic laundry to give sex-trade workers an
alternate source of income and support.

Now, studying for a doctorate in social welfare in UB’s School of Social
Work, she is continuing to explore ways to help women who leave
the sex trade to re-enter the world.

“My research interests are a product of my
experience,” she says. “Whatever services are provided
to these women, something is still missing, because I see some them
relapsing back to the same life. I am really interested in
exploring that missing factor.”

Wilson’s interests fit well with the School of Social
Work, whose graduate programs have received national recognition
for evidence-based research and a curriculum that centers around a
trauma-informed, human rights perspective.

That focus and methodology, while new to Wilson, now inform her
work.

“Trauma is not only associated with women’s
experience while in the sex trade, but it is also attached to their
past, and perpetuates even after their exit,” she says.
“We need to have an understanding of that in order to
holistically treat these women.”

Along with Barbara Rittner, the school’s associate dean
for external affairs, Wilson presented research at an international
conference, comparing Eastern and Western programs assisting women
entering and exiting the sex trade.

“The work Bincy and I are doing has helped me to think
differently about how women enter the trade and why what works in
the West to encourage exit may not be workable in the East or
subcontinent India,” Rittner says. “This is what makes
working with international doctoral students so
exciting.”

With Associate Professor Lisa Butler, one of the country’s
top trauma experts, Wilson is co-authoring a paper tracing trauma
through various stages of women’s involvement in the sex
trade.

For her thesis, Wilson plans to investigate former sex
workers’ experiences and develop better interventions to help
exploited women.

“I’m in the process of becoming a good researcher,
thanks to the encouragement from the UB faculty,” she says.
“They took the time to nurture my thinking and instill
confidence in my abilities.”

Buffalo borders Canada and is one of the United States’ top gateways for international trade. Each year, thousands of Western New Yorkers visit the beaches of Fort Erie, the Canadian side of Niagara Falls and cosmopolitan Toronto.